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M I C A
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Although DJ is often in contact with the mental health services, and many think of him as mentally ill, equally competent others decide he is feigning and produces mental illness behaviour and offers convincing detail about that only when he is faced with difficulties, particularly when faced with personal liability. On the other hand he often praises his care in prison, where he has time to steady himself. he sometimes accepts medication for schizophrenia and finds it helpful. It is hard to believe that an experienced consultant psychiatrist can be taken in by the behaviour before them, with the chance to test thought processes in an extended interview. For this reason this editor believes there was sustained mental illness. The difficulties arose partly because DJ speaks in some kind of Trinidadian patois and idiosyncratic phrasing, and his educational performance was very limited. One consultant exclaims that it was beyond the ability of such a person to be able to fabricate schizophrenia convincingly.
Community teams are unable to sustain their own standards with this tenuously engaged person, and are not given the solid backing of an in-patient settled diagnosis. Witnesses saw her falling from the window of the flat occupied by DJ interrupting a shouting exchange with someone inside. Mental state examinations and Reports from custody to the Court are conflicting, both about his fitness to plead, and the admissability of statements to the police about the event. The Judge permitted the case to go ahead. He is found guilty of murder, and is sentenced to life imprisonment.
Review McGowran; Johnston
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E-mail reaction is welcome
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